


Paint the Walls Anew

by sinestrated



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Actually not sorry, Biblical References, But just this one time I promise, Eggsy is a bit of a crier in this, Fix-It, M/M, Pining, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 20:18:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4362803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinestrated/pseuds/sinestrated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry will die - sometime in the far future, surrounded by loved ones, with Eggsy's warm fingers wrapped around his own.</p><p>He doesn't die today.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paint the Walls Anew

**Author's Note:**

> Come explore this little fandom, they said. You can leave anytime, they said.
> 
> Lord. Also, those of you who may have read my other works know that I am an unrepentant sap. Emphasis on “unrepentant.” Or “sap.” POINT IS I REGRET NOTHING.

He’s not supposed to be here.

The feeling has trailed him for a while now, clinging like a lost child through what seems an eternity of waiting. Harry isn’t even quite sure what the line is for. It stretches out before him into some nameless storefront, and spills out behind him in an endless stream. No one has told him why they’re here or what they’re doing; no one talks at all. He doesn’t even remember how he arrived. Strangely, it doesn’t seem that important.

Behind him stand countless others, a mish-mash from every walk of life: businessmen in tailored suits and sullen, sunken-eyed teenagers; wee children sucking their thumbs and some confused-looking fellows wearing nothing at all. Harry tries, briefly, to count them. His head—right temple, just below his hairline—throbs in protest, and he stops.

Up ahead, an older gentleman, balding with a slight paunch, stands just inside the unmarked sliding glass doors. The bright blue of his vest is tacky and cheap, covered in brightly-colored pins and buttons whose tiny messages refuse to resolve no matter how hard Harry squints. Following them with his eyes makes Harry dizzy, the feeling nauseating and sharp, and he wishes suddenly for the correction of the Kingsman glasses. They’re not here, though, and again, with that strange rolling sensation in his gut, Harry thinks he shouldn’t be either.

The line creeps forward, wordless and unending. Harry moves with it, squeak of polished Oxfords lost in a symphony of sandals and sneakers, moccasins and combat boots and bare, calloused skin. Something buzzes in his blood, unnamed yet urgent like the realization that he has left the stove on before reporting to HQ. Something is unfinished. He was supposed to…he was…well, he was just _supposed to._

Twenty people ahead, the blue-vested storeworker’s voice finally drifts to him, cheerful and plastic, American in that regionless way. “Welcome, Mrs. Barker,” he says to the old lady in her nightdress at the front of the line. Then “Konichiwa, Ishigawa-kun” to the dark-clothed teen behind her.

The line continues moving. The itch inside Harry grows as the storefront looms, all too-cheap plastic and too-shiny floors. The interior shelves are all bare, huge wire bargain bins empty, yet Harry can sense a vastness to this place, a strange sense of finality so that it doesn’t come as a surprise when the latest customer walks through the entrance, wanders toward Produce, and disappears.

It is nothing but the end of the line. Yet, somehow, it is explanation enough.

“Hola, Senor Martinez,” the storeworker says, empty-handed, looking directly into the man’s face. Mr. Martinez—gruff, still-smoking, half his upper body burned beyond recognition—nods and steps forward. Harry takes his place.

The storeworker turns to face him. Up close, Harry can see he has one of those paper name tags plastered to the front of his vest proclaiming, “HI MY NAME IS Pete.” He smiles and says, “Welcome, Mr—” and then he stops.

Silence falls. Harry blinks as a furrow forms between Pete’s brows, eyes narrowing. Confused, he clears his throat. “Um. Hello,” he tries. Perhaps there is a protocol for this sort of thing?

If anything, Pete just looks even more troubled. “That’s strange,” he murmurs, and then turns to bark into thin air, “Hey, check the list, will you?”

No one responds and nothing happens. Half a second later, Pete turns back and gives a slow, sagely nod. “Just as I thought,” he says.

“I beg your pardon?” Harry asks, because he really would like to know just what the fuck is going on, but Pete just smiles.

“You’re not done,” he proclaims grandly, like it’s supposed to mean something. And before Harry can ask, or do anything really, Pete waves a hand like brushing aside an insect.

The movement hits with the force of a bullet to the head. Harry can’t even cry out before the blackness descends.

 

He wakes to pain.

A lot of it.

Harry groans, then immediately stops the sound when what feels like an eighteen-wheeler sits down on his chest. Everything hurts—his legs, his ribs, his shoulders, even his fucking _hair_ hurts—and he takes a moment to lie there, unable to do anything but breathe through the agony.

His head, especially, feels like someone went and drove a railroad spike through it, the pain concentrated just above his right eye. There’s a seeping warmth in his hair and down his cheek that can only be blood. He shifts, then immediately regrets it when the friction of the coarse dirt beneath him lights up little firebursts of pain from a million tiny aches throughout his body, not at all cushioned by the suit. He can’t hold back his whimper, the sound breaking like a wave over the blood on his tongue, splattered over his teeth.

Somewhere in the distance comes a shout, distorted and echoing as if coming from the bottom of a well. Footsteps approach, rapid and light, followed by the solid _thump_ of twin knees hitting the ground and a light spray of dust across Harry’s face in response. “Holy shit,” someone says—female, all rolling Southern syllables, “This guy’s _alive._ Porter, get over here, we got a survivor!”

Then, two seconds later: “Sir?” and a light touch to his shoulder. “Sir, can you hear me?” the woman repeats, and Harry guesses her fingers are supposed to be gentle but it still feels like she’s sticking white-hot knives into his flesh and he can’t help but shy away. The movement ignites another eruption of pain all over his body and Harry is so startled by it that he opens his eyes—which turns out to be a phenomenal mistake.

Bright light crashes in, a thousand needles stabbing into his brain like burning to a crisp on the edge of a supernova. Everything explodes, starbursts of agony over the smash of a million cymbals between his ears, and it’s too much. The light, the pain, it just becomes _too much_ , and the shroud of unconsciousness descends again with nothing but relief.

“Wait, no, stay with me!” cries the woman’s voice, distant again, but Harry ignores her, an echoing afterthought as he falls into oblivion once again.

 

He comes to next exhausted, which simultaneously makes no sense and all the sense in the world. Harry is really too tired to parse it out.

Colors swim and shapes float in and out of his vision, the room smelling of disinfectant and, strangely, safety. He’s been here before, he knows it, even though he isn’t quite sure where _here_ is.

There are noises, too: the soft beeping of machines, the steady hiss of conditioned air. And, underneath it all, an odd lilting sound, a pattern repeated over and over: “…rry…arry…Harry?”

He blinks slowly as a face resolves itself from the blurry background: brown hair, blue eyes, a smooth, square jaw. Those eyes are wide and a little wet, the mouth curved up in the tiniest of smiles, trembling with hope. “Harry?” the man says again, voice quivering, and with excruciating slowness, like a morsel drifting out of a sea of molasses, a name comes to him from the murkiness of his jumbled mind.

_Eggsy._

He didn’t think he said it out loud, but then Eggsy’s face lights up, a grin breaking out so wide it pushes his eyes into glittering slits. “Thank god,” he whispers, and it comes out choked. “ _Harry._ ”

It is like watching a sunrise, Harry thinks, with no idea where that came from. The beginning of something new. And he doesn’t know much right now but he knows enough: he’s safe, and Eggsy is here. Everything is going to be all right.

The exhaustion settles in his bones like a second soul. His eyelids grow heavy. In his rapidly-darkening vision, Eggsy stiffens, smile faltering before it drops. “No, Harry—please, stay awake! Harry! _Harry!_ ”

 _A gentleman does not shout at an invalid,_ Harry thinks, before going away again.

 

He dreams of falling, of landing in the middle of a flapping tarp made of cheap, bright blue cloth. Above him a booming voice shouts, _Check the list!_ and Harry shakes his head, confused, and calls back, _But I’m not on it._

He wakes. Fully.

The Kingsman infirmary resolves around him in a smooth symphony of colors and sound: sterile white walls, bright overhead lights, soft beeps and hums of the monitors surrounding his bed. Harry blinks and takes a moment for a slow breath: he still hurts, an ache all over his body like it is one big bruise, and his head feels weighted down somehow, an unceasing pressure like the phantom muzzle of a pistol pressed to his temple by an invisible enemy. Still, his mind is clear for what feels like the first time in ages. He’ll take what he can get.

A quick swallow tells him his throat is desert-dry, scratchy and swollen. The thirst hits him, strong like a punch, and Harry coughs, reaching blindly for the cup of water he knows should be nearby.

Except, strangely, his arm doesn’t move. Looking down, Harry can’t help the way his heart leaps into his throat when he sees it is because Eggsy is lying half on it.

He can’t see much of the younger man from this angle: just the top of his head, brown hair falling in unruly strands over Harry’s arm and the hospital sheets, and the steady rise and fall of his shoulders beneath the crisp white shirt. Eggsy’s suit jacket, the one Harry had made for him before the final test, hangs over the back of the chair from which his protégé spills like poured putty. His glasses are folded neatly on the tray beside the bed.

For a moment Harry forgets all about his thirst, staring down at Eggsy sound asleep on his arm. The angle can’t be comfortable, not with Eggsy’s neck twisted the way it is, yet he hasn’t moved, hasn’t stirred an inch since Harry’s awakening. Decades of espionage and paranoia take their toll; Harry knows, had he been in Eggsy’s place, he would have been up and halfway reaching for a weapon by now. The fact that Eggsy hasn’t even woken up, that the younger man trusts Harry so implicitly even in his dreams, makes something warm, wonderful, and utterly strange unfurl in Harry’s chest.

He doesn’t have time to examine it further, though, because his thirst takes that moment to make itself known once again. Clearing his throat, Harry looks down and slowly curls his hand into a fist beneath Eggsy’s head.

The younger man stirs immediately, mumbling something unintelligible and smacking his lips as he slowly lifts his head. Harry allows himself a moment to indulge in the sight of Eggsy’s bed hair and sleep-heavy eyes before Eggsy’s gaze finally settles on him and he stiffens.

“ _Harry,_ ” Eggsy blurts, like the name has been punched out of him. His eyes light up, mouth curving into a relieved grin.

Harry smiles too. “Hello, Eggsy,” he rasps, and his voice must sound even worse than he thought because Eggsy immediately straightens and reaches for the water on the tray, expression sliding into worry.

“Here,” he says, and Harry nods his thanks as Eggsy scoots forward in his chair so he can hold the cup steady. The water feels wonderfully cool and refreshing, and Harry has to remind himself to drink slowly.

Eggsy puts the cup back once he’s done, and for a moment doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands before folding them in his lap. “So, um,” he says, eyes darting briefly down to his hands before moving back up to Harry again. “How’re you feeling?”

Harry considers it. Whether from his movements or simply being awake, the pain in his head has worsened, the pressure now more akin to a woodpecker trying to make a home in his skull. He’s also dizzy, not so much that he wants to vomit, but enough so that the room tilts dangerously if he moves his head too quickly. His knuckles sting, his ribs ache, and a sharp burst of pain erupts over his right shoulder every time he moves.

“Fine,” he answers after another moment. Eggsy snorts like he can see through the lie, but doesn’t call him out on it.

For another moment, silence descends. For lack of anything better to do Harry watches Eggsy, trying to gauge if he has changed at all since the last time. It doesn’t take much to notice that he has: Eggsy looks like he’s aged several years, exhaustion written all over him like a watermark. It’s there in the shadows under his eyes, the stubble dotting his chin, the tightness of his lips, the slight sag in his shoulders. Harry lifts his hand to feel along his own jaw, notes the roughness of an uneven shave, and frowns. “How long have I been unconscious?”

Eggsy shifts. “About two weeks. Not counting the…you know, when you woke up before and didn’t remember much of nothin’ and then knocked out again.” His gaze darts away, then back; his expression seems strangely…wary. “I mean, you’re better now, right? Can remember more of everythin’?”

Harry nods, mindful of the vertigo. “Yes. Everything up to the church, and Valentine.” Christ, seventy-odd people slaughtered by his hand in less than ten minutes. He can’t think about it right now.

“Right. Yeah.” Eggsy nods, as if trying to reassure them both. “That’s good, innit?” He jiggles his leg up and down hard enough to vibrate the chair, and his hands work nervously in his lap. Harry frowns; he’s never seen Eggsy so anxious before, and he has no idea why. If anything, he expected Eggsy to be happy, or at least relieved.

“Eggsy,” he says, and pitches his voice low and calming, the way he does for scared hostages or lost children. “What’s wrong?”

Eggsy bites his lip and looks away. He hunches over a little, making himself smaller in the chair, before muttering, “I’m Galahad, now.”

Which just makes Harry more confused, because that’s not an answer. But Eggsy just continues on, speaking fast. “I mean, for a while there they wasn’t sure you’d make it, so…and they haven’t given me any missions yet, Merlin says I still gotta do a couple psych evals or some shit, but I still…after you…after Kentucky, and the church. Me and Merlin and Roxy, we went after Valentine, and we exploded everyone’s heads and then I killed him, I mean a lotta people died but we still saved the world, yeah? The whole fuckin’ world.”

Harry just keeps staring at him. It’s good news and all that—Valentine’s insane plan foiled, Galahad’s title passed to someone worthy, and he never expected anything less of Eggsy, really, had known from the beginning he would become legend in no time at all—but it still doesn’t explain Eggsy’s nervousness, or the way he begins to stumble over his words.

“And after, Merlin and the—they made me Galahad, I mean voted or whatever, so I’m, I’m Galahad now, which I dunno what that means for you but they let me in, I’m a Kingsman now, Harry, like you always said I’d be, and I—I been doin’ everything you taught, like bein’ a gentleman and shit, and Merlin says I’m doin’ good and I, I’m trying, Harry, I—I know I failed that last test but they still let me in, I’m a Kingsman now, just…just like you wanted me to be.”

The last few words peter out as Eggsy runs out of breath, and he ducks his head. His shoulders are shaking. Harry frowns, confusion warring with worry in his gut, because he still doesn’t understand. Can’t Eggsy see how well he’s done?

 Then Eggsy looks up and says, in a voice so tiny Harry barely catches it, “I did good by you, right?”

And Harry finally gets it. He looks at Eggsy, folded in on himself like a chastised child, like Harry has caught him with his hand in the cookie jar and he’s expecting a smack for it, and he thinks, _Oh._

The echoes of their last conversation ring through his head like funeral bells: _Harry, I am so sorry…You should be._ He wants to kick himself. Then he wants to kick _Eggsy_ , for having the _balls_ to—for even daring to think…

Harry sighs and, not letting himself think too deeply about it, reaches forward to grasp Eggsy’s wrist. “Christ,” he says, and tugs. “Come here.”

For an instant Eggsy freezes, and Harry thinks he made a terrible mistake. Then the younger man’s expression just _crumples_ as he obeys, scrambling up the bed to drop his face into Harry’s shoulder, shaking all the while. The added weight sends all sorts of painful protests up from his ribs but Harry ignores them, wrapping his arms around his protégé as much as he can with the damned IVs, holding tight. “Eggsy,” he whispers, nosing into soft brown hair, “Dear boy. I’m not angry with you.”

Eggsy makes a little broken noise at that, and muffled as it is by Harry’s shoulder, it still makes something in Harry’s heart crack and shatter into a thousand pieces. Not for the first time, he wishes he could track down Eggsy’s pisspot of a stepfather and murder him slowly, him and everyone else in Eggsy’s life who ever looked down on him, ever betrayed him and beat him and made him like this, a boy who only wants someone to appreciate him as he is.

It is too late for that, though; years and years too late. So Harry just sighs, running soothing hands up and down Eggsy’s back as the younger man clutches the front of his hospital gown and takes choked, gasping breaths. “Eggsy,” he murmurs, swallowing against the ache that opens up in his chest when Eggsy whines and curls into him like a child. “We…both said some regrettable things before I left. And I want you to know that I have never been more proud of all that you’ve accomplished.”

It is the truth, a fact Harry knows just as he knows his own name. The sky is blue, Valentine was an unrepentant shit, and Eggsy Unwin is Harry’s shining legacy, the best contribution he ever made to the world.

Chester King and his snobby chin can suck it.

The words seem to help Eggsy too, because the shaking subsides a moment before he mumbles a tired-sounding “Thanks” into Harry’s shoulder. He takes a deep breath and loosens his grip on Harry, but doesn’t let go, the two of them content to lie there together for a few minutes more. At last, though, when Eggsy’s fingers start tracing lazy, nonsense patterns into Harry’s chest, Harry shifts and sets gentle but firm hands on Eggsy’s shoulders.

“Come now, up you get,” he says, accenting the words with a soft push. “My ribs will thank you.”

Of course that gets Eggsy off him like there was a spring loaded in his spine. Harry misses the contact immediately for no reason he can discern, but distracts himself by watching Eggsy as he straightens his shoulders and shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says, wiping at his eyes and flashing a brief grin, wet but real. “Shoulda thought of that first ‘fore floppin’ down on you like a dead fish.”

“Dead fish aren’t even the worst thing I’ve had ‘flop down’ on me,” Harry deadpans, and can’t help but smile when Eggsy laughs, bright and genuine, just as he’d hoped.

Before the younger man can reply, though, the door beeps and slides open to admit Merlin, wide-eyed and out of breath. “The monitors’re going mad, what’s—”

He stops upon seeing Harry, mouth dropping half-open. Then his gaze flits briefly to Eggsy’s red nose and puffy eyes—without judgment, Harry notes with warmth—before settling back on him with a huff and a relieved smile. “Well. Quite an entrance as usual, Harry.”

“I’d hate to disappoint,” Harry answers, and he takes Merlin’s smile and Eggsy’s soft chuckle and wraps them about himself like a worn, comfortable duvet after a long mission away.

It’s good to be home.

 

Recovery takes months.

Harry takes it mostly in stride: as Eggsy delights in reminding him at every opportunity, he did get shot in the head. Merlin is a little shifty on the details—apparently there were some procedures and medications used that weren’t strictly government-sanctioned—but whatever the doctors did, Harry is immensely grateful he came out the other side with only a partially shaved head, occasional headaches, a pink starburst scar erupting up his forehead and into his hairline like some mutated comet, and an inexplicable inability to remember any film he saw after 1990.

Eggsy just grins at the last one and says they have some catching up to do.

They spend a lot of time together. With most of Kingsman still intact—thank god for paranoid spies who mostly work alone and who knew better than to buy into a fishy scheme about free SIM cards—even with all the chaos that comes with the almost-end of the world, most of the missions go to the older, more experienced agents. Lancelot and Galahad mostly spend their time at HQ, helping with mission control and completing final training tasks under Merlin’s watchful eye.

Harry, for himself, has heard rumblings about being nominated as the next Arthur, something he’s not quite sure what his opinion about should be, given the last one had betrayed and nearly murdered both himself and Eggsy. It’s going to take a while for everything to fall into place for that, though, and in the meantime he tries not to think about it, focusing instead on physical therapy, fine motor skills, memory and attention and everything else that tends to get wrecked when a bullet tears its way through one’s skull.

He gets better. It’s slow, excruciatingly so at times, but he does. Eggsy comes around whenever he can, sometimes making idle conversation about the latest happenings in the tech department or with his training, sometimes just sitting there in the corner of the room watching Harry go through his exercises, eyes shining with pride and hope. They see each other outside of HQ as well: Harry lets Eggsy drag him to the cinema, and other nights they cook dinner at Harry’s house, swapping servings of food and amusing stories across the table with ease.

It’s the last of these Harry enjoys the most: seeing Eggsy in his home, comfortable and happy as he spoons more sauce onto his pasta while relaying some anecdote about lobbing a firecracker at his neighbor’s front door as a teenager. He doesn’t know if it is his imagination or not, but it seems, here, that Eggsy really relaxes, finally dropping his multitude of walls and barriers to become nothing but _Eggsy Unwin_ , twenty-six, who is allergic to strawberries and pretends he doesn’t tear up when Mufasa dies in _The Lion King_ , who jokes about the Marines and laughs like he’s never been hurt before and forms an anchor in Harry’s life he didn’t even know he needed until it was almost yanked from his grasp.

It was inevitable, really, and when Harry looks back on it he will always wonder at how it didn’t happen earlier.

They’ve elected to have another night in to watch _Independence Day,_ which Harry understands has very little to do with the American holiday other than a speech and blowing up aliens? Eggsy swears he’ll love it and Harry decides to trust him. It’s the third time this week Eggsy has shown up on his doorstep unannounced with a bag of takeaway in one hand and a 90s adventure film in the other, and Harry hasn’t been disappointed yet.

By tradition, Eggsy sets up the movie while Harry transfers the food to plates and collects wineglasses for them both. It’s really no different from all their other nights together, except this time when Harry comes out of the kitchen, he just…stops.

Eggsy is curled up on the left half of the couch, the side that over the last few months has silently become his. He has Harry’s soft, worn afghan thrown over his shoulders, knowing Harry tends to feel stifled underneath it, and he’s stacked Harry’s books and newspapers at the corner of the coffee table just the way Harry prefers: in reading order, bookmark still tucked neatly into the pages of _David and Goliath._ One hand is curled in the softness of the afghan, the other holding the remote as he pages lazily through previews, and for a moment Harry can only stand there and stare, unable even to breathe with how much he wants this.

And he does, with a desperate ache that feels like someone went and punched a hole through his chest. Harry _wants_ this: he wants Eggsy to have a side of the couch that’s explicitly _his_ , he wants Eggsy to know all his little nuances and odd habits, he wants them to leave for HQ together in the morning and then come home together at night, eat dinner while watching the news before heading upstairs to curl around each other in _their_ bed, only to wake up the next morning to do it all over again.

Harry can’t imagine his life anymore without Eggsy in it. He tries to, briefly: thinks of losing Eggsy’s handsome features and rebelliously slouched posture and ridiculous outfits, his brashness and bullheaded allegiance and his smile brighter than the sun. He considers a life without Eggsy’s laugh, the witty way he banters, and the kindness that shines from his heart so intense sometimes it is all Harry can manage just to _breathe_ for the light.

And he can’t. A life without Eggsy isn’t a life worth living. Dear god, he _loves_ this man.

Eggsy’s soft “Harry?” breaks into his thoughts. Harry blinks and looks up to see Eggsy watching him with raised eyebrows; obviously it’s not the first time he’s called Harry’s name. “You all right?” Eggsy asks.

Harry looks down at the two plates of food in his hands, still steaming. _No,_ he thinks. _No, I am not all right, because I just discovered I am madly in love with you, probably have been since the moment we met, and for the first time in my life I have absolutely no idea what to do._

But he doesn’t say it. Eggsy doesn’t deserve that, not after everything Harry put him through, and for Christ’s sake he’s a fifty-year-old professional assassin, he can _handle_ this.

“Fine, thank you,” Harry says, straightening his shoulders before crossing the room to sit down on the couch. For a moment Eggsy looks skeptical, so Harry just passes him his plate and says, “So, Will Smith then?” and just like that, it’s done.

Eggsy can’t be blamed for the fact that Harry can’t remember a single thing about the film the next morning.

He tries telling himself it’s all right. These things happen, and it will go away eventually as long as he doesn’t say anything about it, right? So Harry doesn’t. He doesn’t draw back from Eggsy—the younger man is bright, he’d catch on like lightning—but neither does he encourage him, and they continue meeting in and out of HQ several times a week like the good friends Harry tells himself that they are. Just friends. Nothing more.

Except…Except it seems fighting Eggsy’s pull is like trying to escape the gravity of a black hole: immense, terrifying, and futile. And it’s not possible, it shouldn’t _be_ possible, but Harry finds himself falling more in love with Eggsy every day. Every time a wayward strand of hair falls over Eggsy’s forehead, Harry has to clamp down on the urge to brush it back with his fingers. Every time Eggsy laughs at something he says, Harry’s stomach flips as his heart tries its level best to crawl out of his chest. Every time he is on the receiving end of Eggsy’s bright grin, it is like witnessing the universe unfold.

He compartmentalizes as best he can, takes the warm, wonderful feeling of Eggsy’s smile and boxes it carefully away into a corner of his heart, like one of the neatly-pinned butterflies on his wall. Sometimes, on particularly trying days, he takes the box out to examine it, turns his love for Eggsy this way and that as he tries to find an angle that will finally make it _work_. He never does, though.

Because this isn’t that kind of movie. Eggsy is young and healthy, has a promising career, a loving family, and a whole life in front of him. He needs Harry as a mentor, as an authority figure to guide him through the subtle nuances of Kingsman and the world, and Harry, with his too-empty house and his too-brittle bones, needs to be that for him. So he sternly reminds himself that Eggsy is half his age, and uninterested in men, and that shoving him up against a wall and kissing him silly after he nails a perfect score on the gun range is wildly inappropriate and taking complete advantage of his role in the younger man’s life.

Eggsy is his protégé, his successor in Kingsman, and his friend. It has to be enough. And after a while, Harry even starts to believe the lie.

Then there is an accident at HQ.

They’ve just completed recruitment for Gwaine, one of the few Kingsman agents felled by the violence on V-Day. His successor is Eggsy’s first proposal, a tall, friendly fellow named Greg whom Eggsy knows from the Marines, and young Galahad has had no qualms about lording his success over anyone willing to listen.

“Just you wait,” Eggsy says, nudging Roxy with his elbow from the bench where they both sit, watching Harry and Greg slowly circle each other in the sparring ring. “I’ll bag the next three positions too, all in a row. My mates’ll leave everyone in the dust, yeah?”

Harry doesn’t hear Roxy’s no-doubt-witty retort, too busy keeping his eyes on Greg, watching for his tells, signs that he is about to move. Five months since he woke up for good in the infirmary, and though he’s not yet completely back up to full fighting form, he’s been able to put his previous sparring partners on the mat twice already. It’s encouraging, and he expects to be placed on the mission roster by the end of the month if things continue as they are.

He can tell Greg doesn’t quite know what to make of him. Their latest Gwaine is fully two years Eggsy’s junior, quick-thinking, loyal, and able enough but still with that teenager’s naivete that Harry knows a few deep cover missions will smooth out soon enough. Right now, though, he can only imagine what Gwaine is thinking, facing down this older man with the ugly scar on his forehead, whom other people are already beginning to refer to as _Arthur._

He sees it half a second before Greg moves: the twitch in his left knee, and he makes it quick—three strikes and a solid flip and their newest agent hits the mat flat on his back, staring up at Harry in a daze. From the bench Eggsy bursts into pleased laughter, and Roxy offers polite applause.

“Fuckin’ hell, Harry, you sure you actually got shot?” Eggsy shouts, and Harry flashes him a quick smile before reaching down to pull Greg to his feet.

“Not bad,” he says, as Greg dusts himself off. “Half a second faster and I would have missed you with the sideswipe.”

“Maybe you just need to be half a second slower then,” Greg huffs back with no heat as the corner of his mouth lifts. “And you have got to teach me that throw.”

“Ask Eggsy,” Harry answers easily, taking a step back. “Lord knows I’ve beaten him enough times with it.”

“Oy!” Eggsy shouts from the bench, feigning offense, “I’ll have you know it was just the once—”

It happens in a flash.

A terrible cracking noise sounds out above them, crashing like thunder. Harry looks up just in time to see plaster and concrete start to give way, and leaps forward without thinking.

“ _Move!_ ” he yells, shoving Greg out of the ring with all his strength. He barely registers the younger man’s yelp over a sudden explosion of noise as the ceiling gives way above, sending down a shower of pipes and wiring and great slabs of concrete.

Harry has half a second to register Eggsy screaming his name before it comes down on him.

Time gets a little confused, then, a series of disjointed, snapshot images. _Blink,_ and nothing but darkness and dust. _Blink,_ and Eggsy’s high-pitched, panicked voice shouting down to him, _Harry, oh god, hold on, I’m coming._ _Blink,_ and strong hands pulling him out from beneath a pile of concrete, fingers flitting like sparrows over his shoulders as Eggsy’s face fills his vision, eyes wide and suspiciously wet like when Harry woke in the infirmary, his words breathless with fear: _Harry? Please talk to me,_ please, _Harry!_

He sounds so panicked, so broken, that Harry simply can’t refuse. He coughs, everything rushing back in a wave of sound and light and a sharp, insistent pain in his right arm as he manages to croak out, “Eggsy.”

A beat. Then: “Harry, thank _god._ ” Eggsy’s voice is thick; Harry thinks he feels something wet hit his cheek. “Don’t move, your arm’s broke,” Eggsy continues, and he sounds close, closer than he’s ever been before. “Just…don’t move, all right? I got you. I got you.”

He’s breathing hard, short and hitched like he’s run miles for Harry, just for Harry, and Harry shuts his eyes against another sharp burst of pain from his broken arm and murmurs, “Not…going anywhere.”

That earns him a wet huff and gentle fingers in his hair. “You better. I ain’t done with you yet.”

Somehow, the words sound familiar.

The medical team arrives soon after to haul Harry to the infirmary. They give him a shot for the pain before moving him, so he registers only dimly Eggsy’s angry voice shouting, _You don’t understand, I have to be with him!_ Which is all very charming, how loyal his protégé is, Harry thinks as the passing overhead lights blur into a pleasant mix of incandescent colors.

 Some hours later, after the anesthesia wears off, the sling is set, and the doctor warns him off any rigorous physical activity for the next four weeks, Harry eases into the cab parked in front of the manor, feeling old all the way to his bones. Turns out the broken arm was the most serious injury, along with a minor concussion that everyone made a huge stink over due to his previous head wound. Still, Harry counts his blessings. Even with the addition of a multitude of scrapes and bruises that he’ll likely feel for days, it could have been much worse.

At least he had the pleasure of seeing Merlin’s face turn a shade of red he had never witnessed before. Apparently a couple of lab rats down in Tech had accidentally switched on his latest project, a remote percussive emitter designed to collapse underground bunkers. The weapon just happened to be pointed in the direction of the gym at the time. Harry is just glad it didn’t nick the mess hall or, god forbid, the barracks.

Still, it doesn’t stop him from grimacing and grumbling choice words as a medley of aches and pains erupts with every step up to his front door. Eggsy would probably tease him for his ungentlemanly manners, but Harry is frankly done being a gentleman today.

He hasn’t seen Eggsy since they pulled him out of the younger man’s arms in the gym. Likely he was held back for debriefing and cleanup, which is just as well. As delighted as Harry is with every second Eggsy graces him with his presence, he very much would like nothing more than a hot shower and his bed right now.

Which is why he can’t help the sharp flare of irritation when a knock sounds out at his door just as he finishes undressing.

For one terrible, apocalyptic moment, Harry actually considers not answering. Doesn’t he deserve that much today? Almost in the same instant, though, better instincts prevail: it could be an emergency, and Harry’s loyalty is always, first and foremost, to Kingsman.

Putting on his robe and making his way down the stairs takes a long time, long enough for his guest to knock again, more urgent this time. Harry sighs, slides the spare pistol out from beneath the console table, and peers carefully through the hole in the door.

Despite how he’d been feeling a second ago, the sight that greets him makes any thought of turning his guest away vanish into thin air.

Slotting the pistol back into place, he pulls the door open and smiles. “Eggsy.”

His protégé stands just beyond the front step, light from the streetlamp washing him aglow in a soft golden yellow. He is still wearing his dust-streaked suit, and his smile when he shoves his hands in his pockets and looks up at Harry is a little lop-sided, just this side of relieved, happy, and nervous. “Hey, Harry. Can I come in?”

It’s a little odd to hear; Eggsy hasn’t asked permission to enter in weeks, usually preferring to just shoot Harry one of his signature smirking winks before edging around him into the hall. Nevertheless, Harry steps aside. “Certainly.”

Eggsy nods and walks into the house. He toes off his Oxfords as Harry shuts the door, then hangs up his jacket himself, shooting Harry’s sling a quick, indecipherable look. Harry expects him to head for the living room then, or perhaps the kitchen, but Eggsy just stands there in the hall, socked feet scuffing at the worn hardwood, gaze restless and darting all over the place and never settling on Harry for very long.

He looks nervous and lost, not unlike the way he’d been that last day after the final test, in this very house when Harry allowed his disappointed words to cut into him like a blade.

For another long moment, neither of them says anything. Harry tilts his head, feeling all of a sudden pitifully out of his depth. He clears his throat and turns toward the kitchen. “I’ll go put the kettle on.”

“Greg says hello,” Eggsy blurts all of a sudden, the sound enough to pause Harry mid-step. “And thanks,” he adds, fiddling with his watch. His expression hasn’t changed; blue eyes flit briefly up to Harry’s before returning to the floor.

“Oh,” Harry says, because he’s quite sure this isn’t even remotely what Eggsy wants to talk about. “Well, he’s quite welcome, of course.”

He takes another step toward the kitchen, but Eggsy cries, “Wait, wait,” an instant before long fingers curl around his wrist. Harry turns again at that, glancing down at his wrist before back up at Eggsy, who looks no less pained than before.

“Eggsy.” He risks a step forward and sees Eggsy’s shoulders inexplicably relax a fraction. “What’s going on?”

But Eggsy just shakes his head, looking simultaneously hurt, confused, and angry. Seeing him like this lights something sharp and protective in Harry. Eggsy should never look like this, like one calculated blow will shatter him to pieces; he is too good for that, too full of kindness and love, and Harry just wants to know what has him so wound up so he can fix it and get Eggsy’s smile back.

“Did something happen?” he asks, and instantly knows it was, somehow, the wrong thing to say because Eggsy takes a sharp, shuddering breath.

“ _You_ did,” Eggsy answers, voice stretched taut as a bowstring. “ _You_ happened. God, Harry, you don’t know…”

Unaware of Harry’s building confusion, Eggsy squeezes his wrist, still looking unhappy and hurt. “You don’t know what it was like, do you?” he whispers. “When you got shot, when we thought you was dead. I couldn’t fuckin’ _breathe_ , Harry, I just…all I could think about was how you was there and then you _wasn’t_ , and how I never got to thank you for savin’ me life and givin’ me this opportunity and just fuckin’ _believing in me_ like no one else had.”

His voice cracks on the last word and Harry feels an answering fracture in his own heart, not even so much from what Eggsy is saying as the way he’s saying it, all broken up and shaky as if his entire world is made of glass and Harry is the one holding the stone. “Eggsy, I—”

“And then today,” Eggsy blurts, the words rushed and fuel-charged, like an oncoming train when you’re tied to the tracks and no one is there to save you, “God, when the roof fell down and I saw you go under and I thought you was dead, that you’d gone and left me again and I _still_ didn’t get to tell you the best part, the most important part, that I…”

He looks up at Harry then, eyes a shining collection of cracked aquamarine shards, and lifts Harry’s wrist to press a kiss to his bare skin. “I fucking love you, Harry Hart,” he whispers, like a secret, like a prayer. “I’ve loved you forever so please don’t leave me again, I can’t…I can’t fucking take it.”

And, well, everything just stops. Harry stares, entire body frozen as he watches Eggsy brush his lips over his wrist once more, eyes never leaving Harry’s. He looks broken open, like his very soul has been pulled from his body and laid out for everyone’s scrutiny, like a street-rough, thick-skinned young man who has finally given up and bared his throat for execution. And Harry’s first thought is that he can’t have heard right. Eggsy can’t have just said he loves Harry, not when Harry loves him back with all that he is, because it’s not that kind of movie. For old, jaded spies like him there are no such things as happy endings—just _endings_ , period, quick and final and bloody. Harry was never supposed to have this. He was never supposed to _want_ this.

But it’s here. And he _does._

In front of him Eggsy closes his eyes and drops his wrist. Devastation and self-loathing twist his expression into a grimace as he steps back and shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he stammers, taking a stumbling step toward the door. “I’m so fucking sorry, Harry, I didn’t…I’ll just go, I—”

Harry moves without thinking. Eggsy, already turned away, gives a little yelp of surprise when Harry grabs his arm and spins him around, drinking in Eggsy’s shocked expression an instant before he crowds the younger man up against the wall and crushes their lips together. Eggsy stiffens at first, hands coming up to seize Harry’s shoulders, but a heartbeat later he melts into the kiss, tiny noises shivering up from inside him as they explore each other for the first time, hot and wet and perfect.

And it _is_ perfect. After the initial shock wears off Eggsy gives as good as he gets, dropping his tongue into Harry’s mouth without hesitation, moaning when Harry brackets his hip with his good hand in response. They kiss for what feels like ages, pressed together up against the wall with no space left between them, and when at last Harry pulls back Eggsy looks a little dazed, expression punch-drunk and lips kiss-swollen as he stares up at Harry and breathes, “Harry, you…?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Harry answers, pressing a thigh between Eggsy’s and slotting them together top to bottom because as close as he gets it will never be close enough, “forever, always, I don’t even know but— _yes_ , Eggsy.”

And Eggsy after another moment lets out a laugh, a soft, breathless huff of air washing warm in their shared space as he cups Harry’s face in his hands and whispers, “ _God,_ Harry,” and sweeps him in for another kiss.

They come up for air again a few minutes later and Eggsy pulls Harry to him, presses their foreheads together and smiles at Harry’s approving hum. It’s bright and beautiful as always, and Harry decides then and there that he will dedicate his immediate future to making sure that smile stays on Eggsy’s face forever. And then he realizes that it _can_ be forever, that he and Eggsy _have_ that now, and the happiness that rises in his heart is so strong he feels he might burst with it.

Eggsy seems to feel it too because he slides gentle fingers into Harry’s hair and nuzzles at him, warm and content. “Thank you,” he murmurs, “for coming back to me.”

Harry hums, and his answer comes from somewhere deep inside him, a place vast and bright and Eggsy’s, always Eggsy’s.

“I wasn’t done,” he whispers, and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> St. Peter’s outfit and job will probably only ring a bell for Americans. For everyone else, please Google “Walmart greeter.”
> 
>  **Regarding translations:** All my works, including this one, can be translated without first asking my express permission. I ask only that you credit me as the original author and provide a link back to the original work. For anything other than translations, please ask first. Thanks.


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